To amuse and enlighten

What? Me Worry?

I was recently accused of worrying too much. As you might imagine, this statement has me rather worried. I don’t think of myself as a worrier. I’ve got it together, for the most part. I’m humble and modest because I’m from the Midwest, but underneath that I’m a pretty confident fellow. Oh no, am I too confident? I hope it doesn’t show. What the hell, Libya? Why is The Economist so expensive? Why do they call it a newspaper when it’s clearly a magazine? Why do I only read it on airplanes? Am I only smart on airplanes, or am I just super superficial? Isn’t Comcast an illegal monopoly? I don’t think I can handle another meltdown in the financial markets.

I mean, is anyone actually going to help Charlie Sheen?

The man with mountains of self-delusion and two goddesses worries little, as the proverb goes.

Moving on, I’ve decided to worry less especially since I walked past a book in the bookstore called “The Worry Solution”. It was bright yellow, which is quite worrisome. Does a book need to be bright yellow to catch a reader’s attention these days? Why was I in a bookstore in the first place? Was I lost? Did the Nook e-bookstore fall out of the cloud? Did Apple cease to exist? Wait, there’s a new iPad? I’m a loser already? I hadn’t even gotten used to being cool. I was worried I wasn’t doing it right, that my hipster haberdashery was not properly askew.

A year ago, I worried that no one would care what two thirtysomething self-proclaimed progressive intellectuals had to say about the relevance of unions in modern society. Now unions and politicians are bickering too much about money, and that worries me. I understand the union side, I want to work less and get paid more too. But we all have to make some sacrifices now that we’ve returned to a world of massive geopolitical tensions, $4-a-gallon gas, public celebrity meltdowns, and looming collapses in the dollar (I’d go long gold but I’m worried that it’s too late to start worrying about a dollar collapse). I’m worried that most people who worry about these things don’t really understand them and how they could stop worrying about them by taking some personal action.

Sure, Europe’s financial woes are far from solved and the Middle East faces ongoing world-altering turmoil, but I’m not worried about anyone not understanding Charlie Sheen, despite his own protestations to the contrary. My worried regular brain gets it. He’s done a lot of drugs and he’s losing his mind, in a very public and painful fashion. At least he has two 24-year-old mother figures to help him through these difficult, worrying times. All I have are the crazy talking heads on my outdated TV and iPad assuring me that our mutual destruction is imminent and all but assured.

I’m most worried about the fact that Charlie Sheen doesn’t seem worried at all.